Microsoft is the Anti-Christ. This tool does not benefit the community. Using gcc/c++ benefits the community. Using Mono only benefits Microsoft because that encourages everyone to try Mono and then the developers end of feeling limited on the Linux MONO IDE because it is deliberately crippled with less bells and whistles than the MICROSOFT WINDOWS-BASED.NET IDE.

The bottom-line long-term strategy for Microsoft is to suck money out of developers pockets on an ongoing basis. Their agenda about Linux was revealed years ago with the "halloween papers" their real strategy was "Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt" towards Linux;"Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" Linux. For as long as Linux afficionados remain vigilant, that's not going to happen if Linux developers continue to use gcc/g++. I clearly recommend ignoring all Microsoft offerings on an eternal basis. I look forward to the day that Microsoft is irrelevant in the software domain. Move on. Nothing to see here.

GENERAL RULE OF THUMB: NEVER ALLOW REMOTE ACCESS TO THE ROUTERS.ONLY PHYSICAL ACCESS DIRECTLY IS THE BETTER APPROACH. In Canada, when you use a vdsl2 modem, it usually needs to be a BELL provided modem. The default password is something BELL provides to you to connect to their network. The wifi access/router access password can be changed yes.

Where problems arise that I have noticed recently are local wifi-hackers ddos'ing not only BELL vdsl2 modem wifi access points, but also if you have a bridged modem after that providing other wifi access points, then those wifi-hackers will ddos those also. I goes without saying, there is more than ddos'ing happening here. I wasn't really curious enough to sniff the actual traffic, but once I turned off both the bell wifi access point and the bridged modem's wifi access point, problems went away and the bandwidth and expected responsive connection behaviour was back to normal. If you really need wifi, turn it on for the limited time that you need it rather than all the time. That will minimize the attack surface.

Sure there are parameters for defending against ddos, separate vlans per user, etc, BUT firewalls on each computer on the lan is what really matters the most.ADOBE FLASH is the biggest virus injector of them all. I'm happy Youtube doesn't use it anymore. I hope the other web sites get rid of ADOBE FLASH also.There is no reason not to use open-source streaming servers like flumotion and encoders like ffmpeg/theora. daala video is coming soon I hope.

I didn't specifically say it would displace GM. I didn't specifically say open-source software.I said a similar pattern of open-source arriving within the parts manufacturing "community" in the form of "Do Ii Yourself"(DIY) and possibly labeled in the same GNU/LINUX family in order for it to be easily recognizable as protecting individuals freedoms to hack software/hardware to their personalized or desired general-purpose. "MAKER" or DIY actually already are certainly the same side as the GNU perspective but typically deal with smaller scale things, but there is nothing there to constrain gear-heads/makers/DIY crowds to push the envelope to include cars/car-parts/trucks/planes/etc...

With respect to GM specifically, being that you asked. They let go many of their I.T. consultants when they downsized. There definitely was a brain-drain moving away from GM. There will be market change as a consequence. It will eventually impact GM. It's a good bet some of the Ex-GM employees would embrace the DIY/MAKER tech because it does indeed have a disruptive potential enough to give their ex-employer the finger.

Nice word "black swan". The old-boys club of car manufacturing would like to brain-wash everyone with the concept no small team could ever disrupt their industry, but that's false. All you need is a core team of smart gear-heads that believe in "open-source" to catalyze with easy to reproduce recipes for all the different parts necessary to make some kind of vanilla general-purpose car/suv/truck. Everyone including gear-head special-interest groups want DIY car-building to happen because we need more affordable alternatives. How and who make it happen does matter and it will happen. If the old-boys club of car manufacturing allowed this to happen and actually spurred its growth at least they could make it a win-win for all parties concerned. Otherwise given time the old-boys club of car manufacturing will just end up extinct like the dinosaurs.

Another device with mobile characteristics disrupted the industry: Mobile phones, first with Android, then with Ubuntu Touch on it. The next iteration will be with GNU/Linux Desktop on it.

I envision a similar pattern of events will happen with cars eventually with GNU/Linux Desktop on them, but highly affordable and configurable.

"If Google wants Android users to all be up to date they need to take a standard distro like Fedora or Debian and make it run its own window manager which is Android and its GUI. They need to get vendors to focus on upstreaming their changes and maintaining high quality code."

I agree about taking a standard distro like Fedora or Debian.I agree about the manufacturers/vendors complying to upstream their changes to the standard distro and even before the product ships. The desktop linux emulator should be able to just run it without manufacturer-specific tools akin to usb hard-drives or usb speakers.I disagree with Android's GUI/Window Manager because it's api doesn't comply with standard desktop Fedora/Debian Gnome window-manager api's. In fact as you said GOOGLE rewrote the entire binary building process exclusively for java-friendly apis deliberately for dare I say vendor-lockin. Some people would call it innovation. I call it stupidity because it is a total rewrite with no effort to directly reuse all the experience from C/C++ except for the magic reserved exclusively for the NDK/JNI experts. If you need something custom requiring extra peripherals in Android, there is no way a user can achieve this with just the "ANDROID SDK". They have to contact the NDK/JNI experts. If the GUI had been developed entirely in C/C++ using the standard APIs or with new touch-enabling additions now available in standard Fedora/Debian, then any C/C++ developer can directly access a wanted feature and use it withour requiring some NDK/JNI expert. The other advantage of using the standard Fedora/Debian distro is that everyday, there are new programming languages introduced special bindings to interface with old style c libs which means they are not contrained to simply C/C++ nor just java. A relevant example is golang with gtk3 bindings, mongodb database bindings.Getting masochistic, golang now has qml bindings(go-qml) which actually run on ubuntu touch but there is talk to attempt to run it on android also. The android golang with go-qml is a real-headache. There are success stories about c/C++ with qt on android, but again it is highly masochistic because there are required java building tools in the mix i.e. ant/javac although the entire app should be in c/c++.

Ubuntu Touch/Phone is the future, but they need to bring down that 2-second delay when loading any of the apps. Apart from that every app once up is actually more responsive than Android. i.e. Youtube runs better on Ubuntu Touch on my Nexus 4 than it did on Android 4/5 with the bluetooth on. That's quite impressive considering wifi, bluetooth, intensive network bandwidth, high-resolution video are all being used at the same time for this all with a standard GNU/Linux under-the-hood. Hats off to Canonical Ubuntu for this. Running a lil'debi chroot in Android is impressive too, but slow since it is running along side android and unable to occupy all the device ram as android can. It's pretty cool to try it, but pointless if you want a Debian Gnome gui on your phone because that capability isn't available yet. That's the number one item on my wish list: DEBIAN GNOME GNU/LInux with touch on my phone because Android simply doesn't fulfill my digital freedom requirements.

Yes, English is by far the most practical and easiest to write in because Chinese and Japanese with their bombardment of characters to learn to write and pronounce requires too much time and discipline to master. Korean I am told is simpler. The grammars for Chinese, Japanese and Korean are simpler than English and Latin languages. That explains why there are so many people that speak Chinese/Japanese, but it doesn't necessarily mean that everyone likes to write in these languages. In fact both my wife and mother-in-law seem to avoid writing Chinese or English anything altogether. I can vouch French writing is a big PITA all because the elders of the French Academy decided to make it so. I won't assume anything about Italian and Spanish, but would love to hear if it's also a big PITA to write in those languages.

Perhaps if romanized pinyin/hangul-romaja/Katakana-Hiragana merged together and China/Japan/Korea adopted that rather than writing in traditional characters, they're vocabularies and grammars could potentially overtake English as the most popular language on the planet.

Why place so much effort on according stuff with special suffixes everywhere when writing just to conform to traditional discipline and cultural norms? The world itself has bigger problems to focus its efforts on than emanating correct spelling and aesthetically beautiful writing. It is true computers help us with these spelling/aesthetics problems, but shouldn't it be a priority to get everyone one the planet to understand each other in order to unite rather than oppress? We all have thoughts to express about the world regardless of spelling and aesthetics aptitudes.

sources say: "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish..." Seen shit like this Microsoft pulled in the past. Everyone be vigilant toward anything Microsoft. If it's from Microsoft, remember it's not free and and not open-source. Don't believe anything spewed from any Microsoft VIP. They continue to try to kill GNU/Linux in any desperate attempt they can to divide and conquer. Debian/Devuan disables mono or places it in non-free repos where it should be. I don't like the fact it wants to be installed by default in Debian GNOME. Mono is non-free in the sense that all the mono stuff they have on GNU/Linux is outdated C# libs when compared to what's on the most recent windows os'. It's the old catch-up with microsoft carrot. If you want all the extra bells and whistles you'll need to buy the latest ms-whatever. NOT ME. NOT ANYMORE! I AVOID MS LIKE THE ANTI-CHRIST/PLAGUE.

The internet explorer revamp is a ms-j++(java) history repeated all over again, but with html5 version differences in the browser....I can feel it already. Yet a new tsunami of new bugs/vulnerabilities exploiting your system will be introduced in order to provide a new suite of backdoors for the NSA of course. I highly recommend 31C3's Richard Stallman's talk "freedom in your computer" discussing proprietary software(MS/APPLE) being a social problem and a security liability to society and Mr. Bamford's talk "Tell No One" mentioned MS relaying yet-to-be-patched Windows/COTS vulnerabilities to NSA.

All I see now is NATO propaganda making North Korea take the blame for the Sony pictures hack. Unless we really see the real data behind all of these events, we're all just speculating. Nothing to see here.

Also note, if North Korea would have done this, they would have openly done it. They don't need to cloak or hide. They have neighbours which empathize with them and probably support them with their actions when they deem it fit to act or react to an event elsewhere.

A shitty comedy movie won't be declared an act of war by another country. FBI and everyone else are smoking something too strong to think everyone is going to believe them. In fact most Chinese, Japanese, and South Koreans, North Koreans and Russians probably don't give a rat's ass about this "The Interview" movie or any news surrounding it. They are all too busy with their normal routines which don't revolve around watching American CRAP movies/propaganda. They are also too busy to watch Chinese/Korean propaganda.

Life is difficult for the general populace everywhere on the planet, why escalate this bullshit? Focus on real planet priorities you bunch of fucking idiots! That goes for the GOP also!

Don't trust Microsoft. Never trust Microsoft! Always remember their strategy: Embrace, extend, extinguish!. They are attempting the first step EMBRACE by slipping their tools into Linux like a Trojan horse virus. DON'T USE THIS.NET TROJAN. Get it out of Debian free and place it back in nonfree where it belongs.

PROBLEM: You said: "The problem here is that the CRTC can stop all payment via Canadian credit cards to Netflix, and Netflix can support customers paying via alternate methods who are willing to stream over a VPN -- so the result of this conflict is that both sides lose, and the citizen (not consumer, although them too) loses even more."

While at the CRTC, I was witness to the fact NETFLIX STATED THAT IT HAS A SUBCONTRACTOR HELPING NETFLIX TO IDENTIFY AND BLOCK VPN USERS.

The only way to pass through border censorship and blocking is through VPN's. Way to go NETFLIX blocking VPN USERS when you'll have to resort to become one yourself.

CRTC pretends to defend the interests of all Canadians, but in fact they represent the legacy big boys club in CANADA protecting the interests of a few and not truly there to look out for all citizens interests. Paying a culture tax in Canada, I truly don't believe I should be subsidizing other people who happen to be artists when they don't subsidize my efforts to put bread and butter on my table. That is not fair. The CRTC and associated lobby groups is attempting to dictate what media alternatives I may have in my culture catalog. The world is my culture catalog on the internet. I am for free market and no governement intervention on the internet. The only government intervention CRTC should be to ensure freedoms, not ensure revenue for a select few in the Canadian Media industry.

Ubuntu Party's “If it’s not good for everyone, it’s no good at all.” does really apply here very well. It would be best for the CRTC, Netflix and other lobby groups to follow this rule of thumb. The majority of the population already see through your ulterior motives.

ChromeOS is not appealing to me as a GNOME GNU/Linux user. Android/Linux is not appealing to me either.

Google is tricky to introduce something NEW/FRESH: "Try Google's tiny-bit better OS ChromeOS". DON'T BE FOOLED!ChromeOS like AndroidOS/Windows/AppleOSX is compromising or constraining. Google is misdirecting users to abandon the full-blown GNU/Linux alternatives; Google is doing their best to limit users' digital freedoms by convincing them to use new brand names they have market control over: ChromeOS/AndroidOS. It's all very similar to IBM, Microsoft, and Apple strategies luring people with eye candy or cool features at the expense of your digital freedoms and vendor neutrality(hardware independance). Don't fall for it.

I wish Google would do the right thing and the coolest thing: release a full-blown GNU/Linux with any choice desktop you want(KDE/GNOME/LXDE...) on their brand-name hardware products. Even better would be simply to provide Gentoo, Debian and Ubuntu images for all their brand-name hardware products. Let the consumers decide what flavor they like rather than forcing ChromeOS and AndroidOS down their throats.

I agree entirely with your statement about personal rights. I would like to re-express "personal rights" as one's "digital freedoms" in this case. The Ontario Government must not hamper on one's existing digital freedoms to watch whatever one wants to watch from wherever on the planet. What makes Canada's multiculturalism work is the ability to have access to culture from across the planet, NOT ACROSS ONTARIO. This is our strength being able to view different perspectives and opinions from around the world about any topic. The beauty of it is I don't need to watch subject matter I'm not particularly interested in. When you have limited media like we had with CABLE TV/ANTENNA-ONLY TV not long ago, it was like living in the dark ages. From what I understand the Ontario Gov wants to bring back the dark ages so they can tax/tariff foreign media revenue. FORGET IT. Canadians and citizens from all provinces won't stand for that.

More importantly, the Ontario Government must not impose what they want their provincial constituents to watch because it will resemble more and more a dictatorship rather than a democracy.

It's becoming quite obvious that there is too much concentrated political power controlled by a few corrupted officials not representing the interests of the general populace. Ontario provincial citizens should raise an alarm and consider "lack of confidence" in the government for even accepting the consideration of such an internet regulation proposal.

CRTC has NOT REPRESENTED the interests of Canadian Internet Users for quite some time now so why is the CRTC still in existence? Abolish the CRTC, let the market open up. Allow more competition for as long as the prices become more affordable and all of the businesses offer honest products with no fine print.

Little by little, the world is getting smaller. We are becoming global citizens and the internet and our inherent digital freedoms are the catalyst. Bitcoin will be internet's unstoppable currency. Governments at the Federal, Provincial and Municipal levels who says otherwise are placing a veil of dark ages on their populace. The global majority want spiritual freedom, want peace, want clean air, want clean water, want accessible food, want accessible accommodation, and want work opportunities. It's all within our grasp. Our number one enemy across the planet right now is CORRUPTION in government at all levels. It must be identified and stopped. Governments must make themselves transparent throughout every process they are involved with. Decisions affecting everyone's money and opportunity to thrive should involve representation from all walks of life to ensure progress and prosperity for everyone and not just the corrupt elite. We need to be vigilant. Governments in Canada at all levels have let down many citizens. There are many people who struggle everyday. All is not roses in Canada. Far from it. I can't speak for the U.S.A., but I'm guessing it's pretty much the same there too.

This occurrence of the Ontario Government wanting to regulate the internet is a subtlety we shouldn't take lightly. I have seen another country introduce a similar, but ever so subtle mechanism: in order provide the illusion of freedom, it does something ANTI-NET-NEUTRALITY; it does not restrict non-domestic website access, but it does throttle/traffic-shape the non-domestic bandwidth making it particularly difficult, making it a lower quality of service, making it a frustrating experience to view non-domestic video websites; what can we do to prevent this scenario from occurring elsewhere on the planet and in the short-term in Ontario in particular? ENSURE NET-NEUTRALITY. INTRODUCE MORE INTERNET AND TELECOM PROVIDERS EVERYWHERE ON THE PLANET THAT DON'T HAVE ANY GOVERNMENT OR POLITICAL PARTY AFFILIATION TO THEM. ALL GLOBAL CITIZENS WOULD AGREE TO THAT EVERYWHERE.

Roy: No, BBC, I'm sorry. The Elders of the Internet would never stand for it.

Moss: "Unbelievable! Some idiot disabled all VPNs, meaning all the computers on every floor are teeming with MITM attacks, plus I've just had to walk all the way down the motherfudging stairs, because the lifts are broken again!"

It's very interesting to have another alternative, but MIPS manufacturers will have play catch up in terms of core-count, price and GNU/Linux open-source support with respect to the kernel and the graphics chipset aspect in order to turn some heads and have people fork out cash for them. I'm still conservative. In my humble-opinon dual-core ARM or MIPS running at ~ 1GHz doesn't compare well-enough with >3GHz dual-core Intel product in terms of GUI responsiveness. Battery life isn't the only concern and never will be. INTEL/AMD rock my world on the desktop, but ARM QUAD-CORE is adequate and I'll admit that. I have no problems recommending QUAD-CORE anything, provided they have 4-8 GB RAM, SATA, USB 3.0, and Gigabit Ethernet. Anything else will frustrate users or users will end up wanting for more a couple of days after the purchase. I'm not talking mobile devices here. I'm talking wanna-be hybrid tv-box/mini-PC as desktop replacements. Why are we still selling 1GB RAM to 2GB RAM devices? I'll tell you why: MANUFACTURERS want to dump their legacy product before they ship the newer gen stuff. I won't sell that stuff because nobody wants that or will be frustrated with that stuff. Is it just me or do the manufacturers have a "TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT" attitude towards the consumers. Didn't dual/quad core-32bit exist 15 years ago? Something doesn't smell right in this picture. Shouldn't we be octa-core 64-bit on the desktop/mobile already?

I'm a server hugger because clouds are too unwieldy and fluffy to hug:) Cloud is not a threat to server huggers. It is a complementary technology.If the server you're hugging is dead in the water for whatever reason like an ACT OF GOD, the cloud is great for remote backup of your data or failover to ensure some service is provided from elsewhere at a different location where the ACT OF GOD had no effect. Google, Amazon, Ubuntu all have the ability to specify "Geographically dispersed locations"/"bitbucket locations" for your cloud storage/cloud apps. GOOGLE, AMAZON, UBUNTU win for cloud because when your requirements include that kind of thing, you won't be able to implement the same thing in a manner that is as cost-effective as GOOGLE, AMAZON, UBUNTU. For big companies 4k$/month is a drop in a bucket.

If however you are a "TRUST NO ONE WITH MY DATA HUGGER", that's a different matter. You'll want to encrypt your data, You'll want to own the servers where the data resides no matter what the costs and not want to trust GOOGLE, AMAZON, UBUNTU with your data. That's where DIY IN-HOUSE SERVER and IN-HOUSE GEOGRAPHICALLY DISPERSED BACKUP/FAILOVER SERVERS are interesting. You can call it IN-HOUSE CLOUD. As an example UBUNTU offers IN-HOUSE CLOUD solutions: Check out ORANGE BOX:https://insights.ubuntu.com/20...